Sociological perspective

Marissa perez- castillo

 Personality development
• Personality – describes how an individual adapts to
his or her cultural sorroundings.
• Basic organization of individuals that determined the
uniqueness of their behavior
• Basic organization – refers to the structure of the
personality, how it is put together and the
relationships among various parts.
• Structure of personality – consists of total physical,
intellectual and emotional structure of the individual.
Some aspects of personality
• Physical characteristics – physicl appearance,
these characteristics are inherited but can be
altered by your culture .
• Abilities –skills that are developed within the
culture
• Aptitude – the capacity to learn skills or acquire
particular body knowledge. More related to
heredity, as abilities are related to culture
• Interest – acquired from various kinds of
things
• You all differ in your interest
• The things you become interested in
depends on the culturl alternatives that
are available and an awareness of your
existence
• Beliefs – about yourself, friends, nature,
religion and work
• It also includes attitudes, values,
preferences, superstitions, prejudices and
knowledge.
• All beliefs are related to the culture and
learned from others in the society
• Habits – regular, routine ways of thinking,
feeling or behaving
• Learned from others and help you
distinguish one person’s behavior from
others- related to culture
The influence of heredity & environment
• Heredity
• Characteristics that are innate, present at
birth, physical characteristics
• Transmitting of genetic characteristics from
your parents to you
• Gives biological needs and culture
determines how you meet these needs
• Plays an important role in shaping human
personalities by setting limits.
• Birth order
• Personality is influenced by whether you
have siblings
• How your personality might have been
affected by these factors.
• Parents
• Age of parents
• Parents amount of education, religious
beliefs, ethnic backgrounds, economic/
social status,occupation and communities in
which they live all contribute to the
personality of the person.
• Subcultures
• A portion of a society that has enough
characteristics of its own to set it apart and yet
is included within the general society
• Imagine a subculture different from your own.
How does it influence your personality
• Cultural environment
• Every culture is different
• It makes individuals human
• Makes you embrace your similarities and celebrate
your differences
• Individuals who were raised without the influence of
a cultural environment- having no human
characteristics except in their appearance, no
reasoning, no abilities even in controlling bodily
functions or to move like humans.
• Our personality and our humanity comes from
cultural environment.
 The Social Self

• There are three theorist, John Locke, Charles

Horton Cooly and George Herbert Mead
• Socialization - process of cultural molding,
how individuals learnthe basic skills, values,
beliefs and behavior patterns of the society.
 John Locke

• Insisted that each

newborn human being is
a tabula rasa or clean
slate.
• Eah of us is or without
peronality, acuire our
ronalities as a result of our
social expriences
• Tabula rasa – clean slate on which
could be written just about anything
• You are born without qualities
• You develop your personality as a
result of your experiences-socialization
process-social self
• Social self- the way you see
yourselves as a result of interacting
with others.
• Begin to have a sense of your own self
from your daily interactions with others
 Charles Horton Cooley
• Theory about the social self
• You only begin to have a sense of
your own self.(who you are and
what you are like) after you notice
how others see you.
❖ A newborn baby has no sense of
person or place (various people)
provide the infant’s image
• Put more responsibilities on parents
and others who have contact with
children.- contribute to the child’s
sense of ability or inability
depending on the way they
interact with the child.
The looking glass theory – our reflection of
how we think we appear to others.
• Reflects yourself back to you but only after
others have seen you
• You are as others see you- you can only see
yourselves as only as others see you.
• You continually changing your personality
as you adjust your self image to the way you
are viewed by the rest of the society.
How the Looking Glass Self Works:
 George Herbert Mead
• Seeing yourselves as others
see you is the only beginning.
• You not only come to see
you but actually “ take the
role of the other”
• We come in contact with two
kinds of people.
 The social self
• The self- the part of an individual’s personality
composed of self-awareness and self image
• The social self theory is based on the
perspective that the self emerges from social
interaction
• The self is not there from birth,but it is
developed over time from social experiences
and activities.
 Two kinds of people

• A. Significant others and the I- Self-

your earlier contacts, they know you
and love you ( parents,siblings,
relatives,close friends), they are
important because of who they are
not what they can do for you.
• From these relationship ( with significant
others you develop the I-Self
• Does not depend on your role or where
you are ( class, mall, friends or working).
• Subjective, personal and quiet constant
• Can act in a way that is not expected of
someone in your role because of your I-
self.
• B. Generalized others and the Me Self–
other people in your sorroundings.
• People or roles to whom you relate in
a more abstract, general way
• Human interaction and
communication depend on the
existence of many generalized others
• Directly related to a particular social
situation
• We have many me- selves as the
numbers of roles we occupy, comes
from our continual interaction with our
social environment, our objective
Social Identity.
Activity for social self